A Russian freelance journalist has died in Paris after falling from the seventh floor of his apartment building, with French authorities investigating the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death.
Police Investigate Mysterious Circumstances
Police discovered the body of the unnamed 38-year-old man outside his residence in the affluent Parisian suburb of Meudon on Wednesday morning. He was rushed to hospital but later succumbed to his injuries.
The Nanterre prosecutor's office has opened a formal investigation to determine the exact cause of death and to examine the journalist's background more closely. While suicide is currently the leading theory, officers are also probing whether he may have been the target of death threats, according to reports in the French newspaper Le Parisien.
Clues Found at the Apartment Scene
At the scene, police reportedly found a chair placed in front of the open window from which he fell. Inside the apartment, they discovered letters written in Russian and medication discarded in a rubbish bin.
The journalist lived with a male flatmate, who was present and in a state of shock when officers arrived. Due to a language barrier, police were unable to immediately establish whether the flatmate had witnessed the tragic fall.
A Disturbing Pattern of Fatal Falls
This incident comes just three months after a similar high-profile death in Moscow. Vyacheslav Leontyev, the 87-year-old secretive head of the Pravda publishing house, plunged 70 feet from his home in western Moscow on October 6.
Leontyev was in charge of the famous Soviet newspaper Pravda, the main organ of the ruling Communist Party, and remained in the role long after the USSR's collapse in 1991. He was seen as knowledgeable about the party's secret fortune. Following his death, police also probed whether it was an accident, suicide, or foul play.
Exiled journalist Andrey Malgin commented on the 'strange death', posting: 'The window falls continue…'. This event is part of a spate of deaths of leading managers from major Russian companies during and immediately before the war in Ukraine.
